GeneWatch UK today responded to Rothamsted Research's
admission that its field trial of GM wheat failed to repel aphids (1) by
highlighting the shocking waste of taxpayers' money used to promote GM.

"With GM crops it's
always jam tomorrow and never jam today" said Dr Helen Wallace, Director of
GeneWatch UK, "We have had more than 30
years' of promises of useful traits but they have not been delivered, despite
massive promotion of GM technology by governments and PR companies. There is a
big opportunity cost because billions in R&D funding could have been spent
in better ways. GM has consistently been shown to be a distraction away from
developing real solutions to real problems".

In reality, GM has delivered just two traits; is grown on
only around 3 percent of global farmland; and used in only four crops; the products of
which mostly go to animal feed and biofuels. The vast majority of GM crops,
about 85 percent of land area grown, contain the Roundup Ready trait patented by
Monsanto (2). They are now failing in the field due to the growth of superweeds
resistant to the weedkiller RoundUp which is blanket sprayed on these GM plants
(3). RoundUp Ready GM crops cause well-documented harm to wildlife, including a
90 percent crash in the Monarch butterfly population in the USA over the past 20 years
(4) and RoundUp was recently declared a probable carcinogen by the World Health
Organisation's cancer agency (5). The next generation of GM crops are tolerant
to more weedkillers, such as 2,4-D and dicamba, in an attempt to overcome the
superweeds problem (6).

More than 19,000 field trials of other traits have been conducted
in the USA, but new traits have not been delivered (7).

RoundUp Ready maize produced by Syngenta is the only GM crop
in the pipeline for commercial growing in the EU that would be suitable for
growing in Britain (8).

"We must now recognise
that GM has had its chance and failed to deliver" said Dr Wallace. "We must move on to an agricultural system
that does work and produces safe food that consumers want and that doesn't
damage the environment; and our research systems need to now move away from
their stubborn obsession with GM and instead provide what the public wants and
the environment needs."

GeneWatch UK has previously highlighted the high failure
rate of experimental GM crops (9) and the collaboration between
government-funded scientists, ministers and industry on a PR strategy to try to
rehabilitate GM crops in Britain and weaken regulations (10). The industry's PR
strategy is based on using public money to get academic scientists to promote
promises of future GM crops, which provide magical solutions to complex
problems, as a distraction from the actual problems experienced by farmers
growing GM crops on the ground today.

(7)
There have been more than 19,000 field trials in
the USA for novel traits but only herbicide tolerance and Bt (insect
resistance) have been delivered. Source: http://www.isb.vt.edu/release-summary-data.aspx
(graph of "phenotype category"). 7,458 HT (herbicide tolerant) +
5,213 IR (insect resistant, Bt) = 12,671 trials for the main traits. The others
add up to: 19,196 trials for other traits.